


running up that hill

by aeriamamaduck



Series: not gonna get us [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (kind of), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Anxious Katsuki Yuuri, Blood and Injury, Depressed Katsuki Yuuri, Discussion of Major Character Death, Enemies to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Guns, M/M, Marriage, Married Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Mental Health Issues, Mercenaries, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violence, Weapons, Widowed, this is NOT a mafia AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2020-03-29 12:47:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19020229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeriamamaduck/pseuds/aeriamamaduck
Summary: This isn't a happy story by any means.Not when I'm involved.-Nikolai Plisetsky wants his grandson protected from their enemies, and Yuuri Katsuki, against all odds, is the person to do it.





	1. how deep the bullet lies [PROLOGUE]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK FROM MY TRIP AND BACK ON MY SHIT, Y'ALL
> 
> this one's been in the back of my brain for about two years. it won't be a long work, but it will be a tough one to write (about as tough as "tell me where your love lies").
> 
> as always, it's important for me to keep our mains as in-character as possible, even in this kind of setting, so this is still pretty self-indulgent xD. what can ya do? I am what I am, 104 fics in.
> 
> and this is **NOT A MAFIA AU**
> 
> I AM in the process of updating "as schoolboys from their books", so I haven't dropped ANYTHING. I just had to get this one out as soon as I could.
> 
> heed the tagged warnings, and if anything else needs tagging let me know and I'll gladly include it as we go.
> 
> now for the prologue
> 
> (also the title and lyrics refer to Kate Bush's version)

* * *

 

 _And if I only could_  
  
_I'd make a deal with God_  
  
_And I'd get him to swap our places_  
  
_Be running up that road_  
  
_Be running up that hill_  
  
_Be running up that building_  
  
**_[See if I only could, oh](https://twitter.com/SandraTheDuck/status/1134724398810841089?s=20)_**

 

* * *

 

**_Phichit says that the most important thing is to get everything out. To clear the air in my head and find a healthy way to accept what's happened._ **

 

**_There are things I want to keep private now. Things I'll probably change my mind about keeping private eventually. But that's what writing's good for, especially when I would feel stupid talking into a recorder._ **

 

**_Writing has some sort of filter, at least. I have to think about what goes on these pages rather than just blurt it all out._ **

 

**_I know that this can never get out. More people might be put in danger if I just leave it lying around._ **

 

**_This won't be a record. This will be destroyed._ **

 

**_Destroy this, Yuuri._ **

 

**_This isn't a happy story by any means._ **

****

**_Not when I'm involved._ **

****

**_I look back and almost laugh when I think about how I used to think I was lucky. That I had a happier ending than most in this line of work._ **

****

**_But I haven't been able to laugh in more than a year. Not unless I'm drunk out of my mind. After that I don't even really remember if I laughed at all._ **

 

**_I'm not supposed to drink anymore. Phichit wants me to go to AA but that scares me more than this._ **

 

**_This is easier._ **

 

**_This doesn't involve talking about who I lost._ **

 

**_That memory. His memory. That's all mine._ **

 

**_And it only belongs in this journal._ **

****

**_It started when Okukawa Minako saw I had talent, and scooped me up out of the corps du ballet when I was only nineteen, and put a gun, a knife, and sometimes rope in my hands. Money and security. Power and presence. Mine in an instant, and I just had to stay quiet and obey. Pretty easy, shy as I was even if the pressure had me puking almost three times a week._ **

****

**_Me. Takeshi, Yuuko, and Phichit. We were Tsume. Mercenaries and bodyguards. Except they had the guts to graduate into assassins long before I came along. Politicians, business people, underground figures, an entire melting pot of clients. All under Minako and her partner Celestino Cialdini's thumbs._**

 

**_The anxiety was there, right on my back. Every single moment of every job. It had to be the worst three years of my life, and I wanted to crawl into a hole most days. I started drinking to cope, and started to black out most of my nights off in the solitude of my apartment._**

 

**_The money was good and so was the security, especially for a pathetic trainwreck of a former dancer far from his home country._ **

 

 **_Yes, I killed people. But only when I had to protect a client. In three years I wasn't sent to specifically kill anyone. I was still strong and talented, according to my mentors. Minako was a dancer too, and showed me how to incorporate that into combat skills. I was strong enough to subdue anyone, but not cope with the aftermath in any healthy way._ ** **_Minako and Celestino were patient with me. Until that patience wore off and she ordered me to assassinate their biggest rival._ **

****

**_Yakov Feltsman._ **

****

**_His kind, Volk, were sticklers for the rules Minako so disdained. A challenge to finally prove myself and be a part of the family that had adopted me._ **

****

**_It wouldn't be easy, but Minako said I could handle myself pretty well. Personally I_** **_just think it was dumb luck._ ** **_Still, she partnered me with Phichit, Celestino's prodigy who always had a fox's grin on his face whenever it wasn't just us and our companions. It was less to help me and more to make sure I finished the job._ **

****

**_But Feltsman was a smart man, and his own people had to be even smarter._ **

 

**_They were our rivals, but I personally never had to tangle with any of them until now._ **

 

**_I walked right into a trap and I was face to face with the one Celestino's files named "Agape."_ **

 

**_Silver-haired and blue-eyed, with the face and voice of an angel, smiling so beautifully as he aimed a gun at my head._ **

 

**_I forgot to shoot and my gun ended up ten feet away._ **

 

**_But I didn't forget to try and fight._ **

 

**_Brute strength were nothing against his experience and the element of surprise, but he still had a hard time breathing by the time our short scuffle was over with._ **

 

**_Then he offered me a way out._ **

 

**_Something better than dependence on Minako and Celestino, who he claimed were holding me back._ **

 

**_A chance to become stronger still, and help do some actual good instead of nosing at every scrap that my mentors tossed my way just to survive._ **

 

**_It was like I was a starved man being offered both sustenance and an education on getting it consistently. He could tell I needed to think about it, but still demanded an answer in twenty-four hours._ **

 

**_It could've been a trap, for all I knew. But I also knew that I was still breathing._ **

****

**_I was lucky that we weren't expected back until we'd finished the job, and I found that Phichit was no luckier than I was._ **

 

**_Honest to God, if Yuuko or Takeshi had been with me I would've spilled everything just as I had to Phichit. But I'd finally acknowledged my desperation, the gnawing anxiety, and the certainty that we were only feeding our mentors' greed. There was no time to find Yuuko and Takeshi and share this with them. If I wanted out, I couldn't look back._ **

 

**_Phichit, dependent on Minako and Celestino for longer than I ever was, told me he wasn't letting me go off on my own. If we left, we left together._ **

 

**_I don't think I've ever had a friend like that._ **

 

**_Guns and knives ready, we headed to where Agape told me to meet him twenty-four hours prior._ **

 

**_Sure enough he was there, an Angel of Death in black, smiling like he knew just what my choice was going to be._ **

 

**_Just like that, Phichit and I left our old family behind._ **

 

**_All Agape did was plant a pair of charred corpses (traffickers who'd crossed Agape's path at the wrong/right time) in the right places to throw Minako and Celestino off our trail._ **

 

**_We went from the Northwest to the Midwest, and Volk wasn't exactly welcoming, at first._ **

 

**_Agape instantly vouched for us, but we were watched for months, and our former target, Yakov Feltsman, was no less suspicious of us. I had no clue why Agape wanted me there, and why he was willing to just accept Phichit too. The training was much of the same as it was with Tsume, with more of an emphasis on discretion and protecting the lives of our clients._ **

 

**_Proving ourselves wasn't easy. Not for me, at least. Phichit was always more adaptable. He made friends easily. Dragged me into social situations that had me breaking into cold sweats as I felt distrusting eyes on me._ **

 

**_I gravitated towards Agape, and learned his name._ **

 

**_Victor._ **

 

**_He gave me even more training, taught me to further focus my strength and unleash the skill he insisted was somewhere inside me._ **

 

**_For a long time I couldn't see what he saw._ **

 

**_But he soon showed me._ **

 

**_He suggested I be called "Eros" in our ranks. I couldn't see why, at first. At least not in connection to "Agape."  Not until later._ **

 

**_I didn't expect to fall in love with my new mentor, but it happened and I couldn't stop it. Victor molded me into a better version of the creature Minako and Celestino wanted to create, a version that I actually WANTED to be._ **

 

**_I was nervous during my first assignment. A billionaire, a good man, seeking safe transport outside the country. He wanted to fund hospitals. I lashed out at Victor before it began out of nerves. Was I ready to potentially put a bullet in Takeshi's head to protect a client?_ **

 

**_Thank God I never found out the answer to that question._ **

 

**_The bullet ended up in an assassin's spine, someone I didn't know. For the first time I felt capable. Maybe it had something to do with venting my frustrations out with Victor, begging him to have faith in me._ **

 

**_It was embarrassing, in hindsight. But necessary._ **

 

**_Weeks later my assignment was over and Victor welcomed me back with a kiss._ **

 

**_I'd never been kissed before._ **

 

**_I thought he was just proud. He'd always been affectionate, and I never wanted to get my hopes up._ **

 

**_But it didn't stop at one kiss. Later there were love songs and flowers and dances in his secret apartment in Old Irving Park._ **

 

**_The first time he took me to bed I traced the rose tattoo that lay right over his heart. I breathed in the addictive scent on his skin and ran my fingers through his soft hair._ **

 

**_Sometimes I dream about that moment, and when I wake up I think I'm about to hear his voice._ **

****

**_Months later he traced the tattooed shower of diamonds falling over my heart with his mouth, my ring on his finger._ **

****

**_Volk trusted me and my stomach wasn't in knots all the time. Phichit and I cheered each other on, both of us content._ **

 

**_I had a husband and we had two dogs we adored._ **

 

**_We were good individually and better as partners. I could do my job and feel as free as possible, confident that I was working with the right people._ **

 

**_Life wasn't perfect. But I was happy. We were all happy._ **

 

**_Then came the LeRoy assignment._ **

****

**_It's not their fault._ **

 

**_It's not their fault._ **

 

**_I know this._ **

 

**_Alain LeRoy needed protection for himself, his wife, and his son. He knew who wanted him dead but not, naturally, who'd be pulling the trigger._ **

 

**_Victor and Christophe were sent. They'd worked well together in the past, and I was in the middle of an assignment for the Yang family._ **

 

**_It was supposed to be something simple, in our view. Our last morning together he said, "I'll be back soon. Good luck!"_ **

 

**_It was stupid to think being happy would last forever. Especially in our line of work._ **

 

**_When my assignment ended I came back and Christophe was in a coma after getting shot._ **

 

**_Alain LeRoy was dead and his widow and son were in hiding._ **

 

**_All they ever found of Victor was his ring finger._ **

 

**_His ring was still on it._ **

 

**_I don't really remember what happened after Yakov told me Victor was missing._ **

 

**_Phichit says he got me home and stayed with me while I cried._ **

 

**_Weeks passed and I couldn't do anything. Not when Yakov said I wasn't in any shape to do anything._ **

 

**_There was never any ransom demand._ **

 

**_Phichit found no trace, and he searched the longest out of everyone. For me._ **

 

**_There was never any doubt in my mind that Tsume had something to do with it._ **

 

**_Yakov's always said it was possible, but there was just nothing to go on, or link any other group to the attack._ **

 

**_I keep wondering which one of them did it. Which one of them could've done it._ **

 

**_Which one of them cut Victor's finger off?_ **

 

**_Yuuko. Takeshi._ **

 

**_When I think about that it's easy to imagine killing someone who used to be my friend._ **

 

**_To make them suffer the way he must have suffered._ **

 

**_I don't want to speak in the past tense._ **

 

**_Some stupid thing in me believes there's still a chance. Victor was too good, too smart, too lucky to just die so easily._ **

 

**_It's been almost two years since it happened. Christophe's recovering and has always said he has no clue what happened to Victor. I'd never seen him so devastated._ **

 

**_I never blamed him. Victor was his friend too._ **

 

**_Was._ **

 

**_Phichit says I had to be held back when Yakov said that there was no hope left. That the search was being called off._ **

 

**_He took me home and that night I drank more than I ever had in my life, and I woke up on the bedroom floor hugging our informal wedding photo. The glass was cracked._ **

 

**_I couldn't say it or think it._ **

 

**_I still don't want to._ **

 

**_But I need to start moving on. I'm no use to Volk like this. Drinking alone in our apartment. Blacking out until I pass out. Yakov already came once and told me Victor wouldn't want to see me destroy myself._ **

****

**_Not after everything he'd done for me._ **

 

**_I'll probably write this at the end of every entry until it feels normal._ **

 

**_My name is Yuuri Katsuki, and my husband Victor Nikiforov is dead._ **

 

 

 

 

**_That didn't feel normal._ **

 

 

(from an entry by the owner of the journal, later burned)

 

* * *

 

* * *

* * *

 

* * *

 

_To_ _Eros_

_Agape lives_

(from a piece of bloodstained paper that dissolved in rainwater before it was ever received)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to include that note in the end but I'm a merciful being. as a reader I wouldn't want to wait for an update for some kind of reassurance xD.
> 
> and things are not always what they seem.
> 
>  
> 
> coming up: OUR KITTEN YURIO
> 
>  
> 
> (I promise some fluffy canonverse fic is coming your way too ;w;)


	2. Chapter 2

Yuri was used to putting up fights, to not giving in so easily.

 

But there were a couple of factors that contributed to him currently being in this situation:

 

One. His grandfather looked so exhausted and fearful.

 

Two. The bruises on Yuri's throat.

 

When he took off the collar the in-house doctor had put on him, the dark hand prints around his throat told him everything he needed to know: he was lucky his neck wasn't broken.

 

For almost a week he couldn't speak without a frightening croak, one that made his grandfather stiffen up. Blood vessels in his eyes had burst, and that didn't help whenever he looked at himself in the mirror.

 

He'd never had a bodyguard of his own before. He and his grandfather had assumed he was the one who was safe.  _Dedushka_ was usually the target, constantly hounded by a hatchet-faced woman who once broke a guy's arm with a twist that made Yuri envy her strength. Such were the dangers of defying dangerous, immoral business rivals. 

 

They came after Yuri one night outside the train station. He hadn't expected it but the fucker hadn't expected Yuri to be carrying a pocket knife in his combat boots.

 

It might have been what saved him. He remembered stabbing into the guy's gut once, twice, three times as his vision went dark and he thought only of how his death would tear his grandfather apart.

 

Then he woke up in his home,  _Deda_ at his side, and a collar on his neck.

 

Yuri wasn't consulted. In the end, no matter how defiant he was, his grandfather would have the last word. And Yuri was too tired to argue. 

 

He'd been tired. Worn out. Ever since it happened. 

 

The nightmares didn't help.

 

"Eros will be looking after you while this situation with the company is dealt with."

 

The guy was standing next to his grandfather's desk, and he...didn't look like much. Not like his grandpa's bodyguard. The guy wore glasses and looked like the most pathetic guy in existence. And what the fuck,  _Eros?_ Like...a sex god? Was he supposed to fuck assassins to death or something?

 

Yuri gave his grandfather an incredulous look, but his neck throbbed with the sharp memory of hands wrapping around it.

 

 _Dedushka's_ bodyguard had nothing to say, but the look she gave Eros was...what the fuck, she looked like she was impressed by him.

 

When Eros made his way over to introduce himself to Yuri, the boy noticed the shadows beneath his eyes. 

 

They shook hands, and Yuri grudgingly admitted that it was a strong handshake. 

 

His grandfather said he was from  _Volk_. Like that meant something.

 

But this was the guy who'd hide Yuri away while his grandfather took whatever revenge he needed to. Eros would guard him and prevent another attack.

 

He was responsible for Yuri now.

 

Shit.

 

How the fuck had everything gotten to this point?


	3. Chapter 3

_I wasn't expecting Christophe Giacometti to be one of my best friends._

_When I first started out with Volk, I was jealous of his rapport with Victor, especially after I found out they were casual lovers in the past._

_And yet he was the one who told me just how much of Victor's dedication and time I had, that he'd never given one single trainee such attention. It made me feel special. Possessive. Proud._

_I could do anything._

_With time came friendship, and I trusted Christophe when it came to Victor. In more ways than one._

_He's awake. There's a bullet in his brain. He can't speak and whenever I come to visit him he starts crying._

_He has a letter board he uses to speak._

_"I'm sorry"_

_It's all Christophe says anymore._

 

* * *

 

Yuri woke up in a bed that wasn't his, in a place that wasn't his grandfather's mansion.

 

Not just a bodyguard. But a new home, for the time being. A fucking roommate.

 

People were never Yuri's strong suit. He was picked on for being slight of build and bit right back whenever a hand was laid on him. It got him in trouble a lot of times, but it was always worth it. No one came near him.

 

Online classes and private tutors were a decent enough compromise for Grandpa. It kept Yuri out of trouble. Sort of.

 

He'd slept thanks to the painkillers, but a nightmare didn't allow him much rest. 

 

Neither did the dogs.

 

They leapt upon Yuri as soon as he opened the door, and his bodyguard, Japanese Yuri, hurriedly apologized as he shooed both poodles away.

 

He looked even less like a bodyguard now, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants. 

 

Breakfast was on the table and soft music played from the phone set on a dock on the kitchen counter. 

 

Yuri ate sullenly, giving Yuuri a gruff thanks, his neck still aching.

 

He looked around.

 

There were photographs on the walls, of Yuuri and some other guy. Silver haired and blue eyed, and all smiles.

 

In one frame they were in an embrace. And kissing. Undeniably. 

 

"Who's that in the pictures?"

 

(The boy didn't notice the flinch. The jump in Yuuri's heartbeat. The clench of his fists as his heart cracked like glass, barely holding together.)

 

"...My husband," Yuuri replied tightly, eyes on his plate. He wasn't eating.

 

Yuri glanced at his left hand. No ring. Then he looked at his right hand and almost did a double take.

 

There it was. On his right hand. Just like Grandpa wore even though Yuri's grandmother had been dead for three decades. "When's he going to show up?" Yuri asked around a mouthful of eggs and bacon. 

 

Yuuri didn't look at him. He just stared at his plate in silence, long enough that Yuri thought he didn't hear the question. Then he suddenly said, "He died. His name was Victor."

 

The expression on his face stayed frozen, and Yuri felt shame burn in his belly, taking away his appetite. That didn't happen often. "...Sorry," he muttered, actually meaning it, unlike the other times when a teacher forced him to apologize to a kid he'd punched only after he'd dumped the contents of his lunch tray all over Yuri's favorite hoodie. 

 

Yuuri sighed and shook his head. "It's okay."

 

(It wasn't)

 

( _But it's not Yuri's fault. He's counting on me now. Yakov trusts me. He believes in me after the mess I've made of myself._

 

_A solitary, sullen kid. Quick to get into fights. Stronger than he looks._

 

_He killed his attacker._

 

_He has nightmares too._

 

_But he's brave. Maybe braver than me. Than I ever was.)_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW Violence.

**_He led the well-dressed man to the private room, feeling his eyes on his naked back. Once Yuuri closed the door the music in the club proper reduced to a steady, muffled throb through the walls._ **

 

**_The job involved cornering the assassin tailing their client, who was in the habit of frequenting a club filled with exotic dancers._ **

 

**_And Yuuri knew how to pole dance, so here he was wearing nothing but a skin-tight pair of black underwear._ **

 

**_All eyes had been on him for the past few hours, especially when he got on stage and did everything he could to ignore his anxiety. He focused on the music, trying not to think about the possibility of maybe having to go into a private room with another man..._ **

 

**_And then that was exactly what happened. Money changed hands and there was a man sitting on the red sofa, gazing at Yuuri expectantly before smirking._ **

 

**_"Your hunch was right, Eros. Christophe got in touch with our mutual friend after you pointed him out. It was all nice and neat, and now Dagrusi is short an assassin."_ **

 

**_Yuuri smiled back at Victor, warmed by his praise. "And the client?"_ **

 

**_"Last I saw he was pouting and ordering another drink after he saw us coming over here," Victor replied with a shrug, smirking with pride. "I think he wanted a chance to get you all to himself. You had him and everyone else panting for you after your performance."_ **

 

**_"Good thing you beat them to it," Yuuri remarked in low tones, shyness melting away as he walked towards his husband and sank to his knees between those powerful legs, his heart racing under Victor's possessive gaze. He trailed his hands up the insides of Victor's thighs and closed his eyes as Victor ran his fingers through his hair. "...Did you knock the cameras out?"_ **

 

**_"Just for you," Victor replied softly, thumbing at Yuuri's lower lip. Yuuri opened his eyes to see him smiling with anticipation. "Now, about that private dance..."_ **

 

* * *

 

Victor jolted awake and wanted to weep.

 

No. No tears.

 

_Don't lose it._

 

He reminded himself every day.

 

Live another day.

 

Get back to Yuuri.

 

But how many days has it been?

 

He hissed at the sudden memory of pain, his four fingered hand tensing for several moments.

 

They took his ring.

 

And Chris was dead. 

 

Yuuri was looking. He had to be.

 

He was safe.

 

They would have come to gloat if he wasn't. Come in and shown Victor his head before finally putting a bullet in his brain after making sure he suffered.

 

He raged against the thought. Mentally. Physically.

 

He made enough of a racket with the chain linking him to the room that  _she_ came and beat him, kicked him down until he was barely concious.

 

Victor teetered between agony and oblivion, and thought of Yuuri. 

 

Alive.

 

Alive, damn it.

 

Long enough to avenge Christophe and return to his husband.

 

Memory was both torture and a small mercy. 

 

Yuuri's face when Victor first kissed him. The way he looked on their wedding night. That last morning together, kissing over coffee.

 

_Stay alive._

 

One kick landed on his head, and he felt a sickening pop before hearing...silence.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

PTSD.

 

Anger management issues.

 

Visible bruises on his long, pale neck. The yellow hair did nothing to hide them.

 

Yuri was quiet in the days following their first interaction, and Yuuri couldn't blame him. Not for...whatever he was feeling. 

 

Yuuri could remember that state of being rather well. Almost. Most of it was buried under a haze of alcohol.

 

Nine months sober and he knew he'd never be able to live any of it down. Hiding alcohol, drinking himself stupid while dancing to music in his living room and crying over his wedding photos.

 

Or the mortification of Phichit finding him unconscious on the kitchen floor one afternoon.

 

Those weren't things Yuuri wanted Yuri to find out. Not when things were incredibly fragile between them. The boy did his online lessons, ate, and listened to music in his room, but he never appeared to text anyone. Communication was apparently limited to daily calls to his grandfather, which supplemented Yuuri's own calls to the man.

 

From him, Yuuri learned Yuri's father had been dead for years, and his mother wasn't present in his life. 

 

He'd led a rather lonely childhood.

 

But Victor had taught Yuuri to look closer. Deeper. Yuri was stubborn. Proud. Unwilling to be seen as a weakling. 

 

Just like Yuuri, who laughed to himself at the realization, and knew Victor would have laughed too. 

 

The boy was strong, there was no denying that, but...something broke inside of him the night he was attacked and he ended up killing his attacker.

 

At least he ate voraciously.

 

Just like Victor did.

 

Yuuri sighed and stared into the soapy water as he washed the dog dishes, listening to the dogs yipping as Yuri briefly played with them, his first sign of life. 

 

Nikolai Plisetsky wanted his grandson to be safe.

 

So Yuuri would protect him.

 

And teach him to fight and hold his own.

 

Give him that autonomy back.


	6. NADIR

_There were nights when Yuuri went to the bars. Drank himself into a stupor where he could forget he was a fucking widower. That his husband was dead. Lying in pieces somewhere, no longer able to love and hold Yuuri._

 

_It was easy to drink. Forgetting was wonderful._

 

_People noticed him in those bars and clubs. Noticed him dance. Women would gaze invitingly. Men would run their eyes over his body appreciatively._

 

_Once he got close to a tall, broad-shouldered man on the dance floor, close enough to smell the scent of cologne and male, and for a moment Yuuri fucking missed getting **fucked** , missed falling apart underneath somebody who knew what they were doing, eventually making him scream himself hoarse. His cock throbbed at the thought of being touched by the man who was getting closer, his large hands reaching out towards Yuuri's waist. Yuuri felt his hot breath on his nape, felt his loins tighten at the touch of those hot hands and then at the sensation of a long, hard body molding easily against his back, an obvious bulge eventually nudging at his rear at the same time that those hands moved, one to his hip and the other up to his chest, a wet mouth finding the spot on Yuuri's neck that made him moan involuntarily. At the sound, the man smiled against Yuuri's skin before sucking at it, his hips grinding against Yuuri's rear._

 

**_"You could have anyone you want," Victor once whispered huskily beneath Yuuri's ear, right before possessively sucking at the skin and tangling his fingers in Yuuri's hair. "You could have anyone wrapped around your little finger, and they'd fall on their knees for you." He said it all while at the same time squeezing Yuuri's ass, hard, reminding him just who he belonged to, something that made Yuuri shake with pleasure and need. Victor tugged his head back by the hair and marked his neck, Yuuri dazed and aching with need as he writhed pathetically in Victor's hold, wanting Victor to make him his, inside and out, to choose HIM like he had ever since they met. "You're all mine," Victor whispered in Russian before claiming Yuuri's mouth as though it had always belonged to him._ **

 

_The memory was sobering, and Yuuri tore away from the man, his neck, his body...all of him burning with guilt at such a small, brief betrayal. The music drowned out anything the man may have called out, or else it was the guilty beat of Yuuri's heart as it reminded him that it was Victor. It was only ever Victor who'd touched him, kissed him, tore him up with pleasure._

 

_Loved him._

 

_Yuuri ran home. Locked himself in his room with a bottle of tequila to drown the shame clinging to him, resorting to humping a pillow to memories of Victor's touch, gentle, rough, always loving._

 

_It wasn't a healthy thought process, but fuck it. There could never be anyone else for Yuuri. Not even for a one night stand or a moment of blind pleasure. There was only Victor._

 

_And he was gone._

 

_-_

 

Sobriety sharpened the memory of guilt, and there was no escaping it. Yuuri hadn't even  _touched_ anyone and he felt like he'd cheated, even as drunk as he'd been.

 

Moving on was supposed to be healthy.

 

Most of the time Yuuri decided to just flat out ignore that advice. He wore his ring. Wore Victor's on a chain. Tattooed another ring beneath the real one.

 

Now sober, he still agreed with what he'd realized when drunk: there would never be anyone like Victor. Not for Yuuri.


	7. Chapter 7

It was a nightmare that had Yuri bolting towards the improvised weight room in his bodyguard's (holy fucking shit he was never getting used to that) apartment.

 

It was so far the only spot in the place that wasn't saturated with reminders of some fucking lost love. Which wasn't to say that Yuri's room was included in that statement. No, in the past three weeks since Yuri had moved into that room, he and Potya had made a project of restoring some semblance of their former lives to the significantly smaller space offered to them, windows facing the outside pointedly  _not_ included.

 

But he wasn't a prisoner. Yuuri made a point of repeating that over and over in his own flustered way, telling Yuri that they could go wherever he wanted,  **within reason**. 

 

In any other situation Yuri would've jumped at the offer. Fuck, he would've probably snuck out, consequences be damned.

 

Which brings it all back to the nightmare that had Yuri waking up in a cold sweat, panicking for a few moments in the darkness because he couldn't breathe, there were hands squeezing his  _throat_.

 

The satisfying ache in his core with each sit up served as an agonizingly solid reminder that he was wide-awake and alive. All because he'd killed the son of a bitch who laid hands on him.

 

He should have felt proud. Powerful. Stronger than anything in the world.

 

But he was having nightmares and puking at the thought of all the blood that he'd gotten all over himself. At how much it had  _hurt_ and how his lungs had burned and his brain went dark when the fucker squeezed. 

 

He was alive. He'd beaten the son of a bitch and he felt like a weak crybaby every single fucking day, tailed by a fucking babysitter on his grandfather's payroll. And not just any babysitter, but some bleeding heart widower who was more chickenshit than bodyguard.

 

The anger at the powerlessness that he was doing his best not to acknowledge just drove his body to a tiring extreme, his chest burning and his bones feeling like they would splinter apart.

 

But it was better than the alternative.


End file.
